Tolkien had it down pat when he created Frodo, the quintessential archetype of the overladen worker. Frodo was burdened by a ring - a small innocuous object that couldn’t have weighed more than a gold coin. And so it is to those around, left scratching their heads wondering why employee x, stay-home-mums and school teachers complain as much as they do.
You really won’t know how heavy the ring is unless you’ve carried it.
Work has risen to a fevered pitch and I find myself working on the clock, off the clock, and pretty much any clock I can get. Even while patting Anne to sleep during her numerous nightly tantrums I devote spare processing cycles to work.
It takes a lot to produce good work, and even more to make its production look effortless. The catch-22 is that should you succeed, the people around you actually believe that it’s easy. The fact that you even had time to blog about it at 5 in the morning confirms their belief.
“It’s just a friggin’ ring. What so hard about that?”
“Uninspired” seems to be how I’d describe my own inner state these days. But upon closer inspection it isn’t that I’m uninspired - I have been sapped of whatever inspiration for work I once possessed.
I chose the road less travelled because it would result in the greater good. It has come at a heavy personal cost and the journey bears down on me. I have chosen to be the better husband, the better father, the better employee, craft better things everyone could use.
The imagined outcome once glorious now sits naked before me. The destruction of the ring would be celebrated only in the the little echo chamber of the fellowship. It would mean nary a thing to the rest of the world, and maybe even those who entrusted the task to me.
It is just a ring.
As for me, getting the job done right feels like I’m saving the world. That is why I do the things I do - sleep as late as I do and plough endlessly to learn and incorporate the best into stuff I create.
It’s like a slap in the face when Lee Kuan Yew, who like me serves the people of Singapore, proclaims loud and clear that expecting the leaders of our nation to sacrifice their own personal wealth is “an admirable sentiment, but we live in the real world” (interview archived by Sharon).
I’ve rejected better paying job offers out of a sense of duty to my employers, the government of Singapore and my fellow citizens. Kuan Yew’s statements leave the taste of blood in my mouth, like a sucker punch I didn’t see coming from a friend.
In my previous post I said that I was “ideologically lost as a citizen of Singapore”. Lee Kuan Yew still sets the agenda for the country, even if it is from his quasi-official post of omnipotence as Minister Mentor. This is his ideology for us all:
I started off as a socialist, believing that all men should be given equal opportunities and equal rewards. I know that doesn’t work.
You have competition and reward the winner.
I believe in meritocracy. I also believe that meritocracy means giving equal opportunity to all individuals to seek their own destinies. Equal opportunity is incompatible with the Singapore system. Scholars are identified even before their teens and put on the fast-track while the rest of us eke out a living.
While most Singaporeans are bound to live dual-income families, spend less time with our children and subcontract out our parental obligations to total strangers, our leaders list their own sacrifices as the potential opportunity cost of having a few more million dollars of spare cash in their bank accounts. The average Singapore family struggles with bread, butter and education for their children. Our leaders are sticking it to us regardless of what noise we make because of what they could have, should have been were it not for the involuntary burden of public service foisted upon them.
The repeated crucifixion of democratic government should ring warning bells for us. It is understandable that most of us carry on life as usual - it is hard to hear over the din of daily mundanity and the sound of casinos being built.
My family is thinking of leaving.
There is no place on the fair earth that is ideologically perfect. But at least in most developed countries we get to speak out against injustices and sometimes things change.
I came back to Singapore hoping to make a difference.
“Too bad. Not a scholar”.
Cya on the other side…
hahha… u need a pat on your back.
Don’t think of leaving… leave if you can. This business enterprise called Singapore is socially a failure. And when the social capital is depleted, the economy will go with it.
You would regret if you do so. I did the same thing in leaving Malaysia. Not that I was a civil servant, I wanted to change Malaysia for the better. But in the end, I decided that my race (I’m a minority of a minority) would prevent me from that, so I went and sought greener pastures.
If you have a desire to change Singapore, don’t leave Singapore on the account of how much Lee Kuan Yew wants to make.
it is only right for patriots to leave the motherland to preserve a remnant and to pursue the Singaporean dream
Leave quick before you get too jaded to do shit. Save your offspring(s?) and don’t let them suffer on that island! Get out now!
Hi there, thanks for your post. It’s nice to know that there are ppl in the public service that do really try to give the best that they can. I think one problem is that a lot of public servants do not internalise the values of the service that they are providing (for the greater good, for the ppl etc) and rather treat it as just a job that they can just cruise through cos it’s not as competitive (it’s hard to get fired) as the pte sector.
I wonder if I can be considered as idealistic as you. I ain’t as smart as you are, and I’m sure I’m not as talented.
I wanted to make the same difference - at least to impact a group of individuals. It’s not a path less travelled, but more like a path people abhor.
It’s sad to hear you making plans to leave. Perhaps, if you ever come back again to this little island, come back as a foreign talent. =)
Take care eh!
sigh
even if a General is more able then 10000 men, without 100 men behind him as he charge into battle he will definitely fall.
if you can go just go dun get caught up in a cycle of despair and unrecognized labour.
i mean if onli scholars can win this competition we have here, might as well join another competition that has fairer rules?
All the best to your future
Thank you all for your comments and well-wishes. The one that particularly stood out for me was Rajan R’s, the one dissenting voice.
Like any relationship, we have “what-if” moments. In this case my family, and I’m sure many, many other families out there are wondering if Singapore is a place that upholds values we want to inculcate in our children. We are weighing the decision and our suitcases aren’t packed yet - there is still much good we can do here in Singapore.
Like Rajan mentioned, regret is a possible consequence of leaving the land you grew up in. To leave would be to give up on the relationship, possibly prematurely. To stay could be to cleave to a recalcitrant horse - not going the way you want and definitely not a great life companion to share your hopes and aspirations with.
What makes you think you work harder than other people. You readers think so much of you, but I don’t see any special talent that other countries will want you. Maybe that is why you stay in civil service.
^ Caught-22
:)
Hi, I came across this post while blogsurfing and wanted to give you my two cents as someone who did leave — I’m Malaysian, not Singaporean, but the situation was similar. I left young. I was furious and frustrated; I swore I’d never come back.
I wouldn’t say I regret leaving because I think it took leaving for me to get to where I am. I’ve been watching my homeland from a distance, coming back only for holidays, and I see that so much has stayed the same but so much is changing, too. There are some exciting changes going on; there is finally (thanks in large part to the internet) some sense of a civil society, of activism and active social commentary. I look at it all and wish I could be a part of it. Maybe someday I’ll go back. But it was good for me to get away, and I won’t deny that it’s nice to have the choice.
“Too bad. Not a scholar”. i can’t say i totally understand because maybe i’m sitting with a golden spoon in my mouth right now and not knowing it. but my friends have had the same experience as you. what meritocracy means and how it plays out really depends on who is in power and who is defining it. that aside, i know of other places in the public sector (i.e. away from the ministries) where being a scholar doesn’t make much of a difference in terms of career progression and development. (working) life is better there.
I am waiting till 2011 to leave. If nothing changes after the next election, I’m gone. It’ll give me 4 years to save up money as well. No HDB flat and car for me.
Beg pardon: Why the title? I’m flummoxed. The Polaroid of Marty McFly?
Marty McFly was the protagonist in “Back to the Future”. He carried around a polaroid of his family, and the image of himself started disappearing from the polaroid due to a disruption in the space-time continuum.
Thank you. I vaguely recalled Marty McFly and the polaroid, but prior to your explanation I had some difficulty relating what I remembered of the film, to your post. It’s like some literary metaphor which you struggle to make sense of but it’s sweet once you get it. At least I hope I did. :)
make a difference…. God’s idea, or yours? if God’s, you get whatever you need to make it happen. if yours, you know what will result…
I’m a Returnee too. Don’t give up.:)
It’s sad that Singapore Inc relies heavily on people such as yourself to do the dirty work out of passion and self-righteousness. The fact that, today, even passion cannot carry individuals through a single career has resulted in the civil service approach to keep bringing in ‘fresh blood’ and allowing the turnover to be high. Presently, if one were to study the trend, the ‘goodies’ (rewards for length of stay) for civil service personnel extends to about 6 to 10 years, after which they stop abruptly.
I foresee things to only get worse as time progresses and the likelihood is that this ‘encouraged length of stay’ will ultimately become much shorter. It is always the average worker, who does the work for the work, who will be sorely affected by the system.
It is better to be a mercenary and ensure we are being rewarded according to the effort that we put in rather than continuously offer ‘freebies’. We are foolishly waiting for a corporation to operate as a country, and the longer we wait, the bigger fools we become.
Having been cultured by the system over generations, we have now forgotten the fact that we are still in control of our lives (no matter the circumstances) and have lost the ability to take risks for our own betterment.